Authoritarianism in parents and the upbringing of children

Several lines of enquiry which would have been of special interest were closed for lack of greater numbers of subjects. For example, although one of the five lower middle-class schools was Roman Catholic, the question whether religious affiliation entered significantly into the development of leadership potential and popularity in children could not "be pursued. The question whether the tendency for a majority of Edinburgh parents to have authoritarian attitudes is typical of the rest of Britain is obviously outside the scope of this study, but it is one of considerable sociological interest. Gorer (1955), in his enquiry into different aspects of English character, found marked regional differences in attitudes to paternal authority, punishment, etc. It is difficult to draw any conclusions from this data about the distribution of underlying authoritarian attitudes. Some of his generalisations are clearly relevant, e.g. 'the great majority of English parents...have most decided views on the suitability or unsuitability of specific punishments, quite regardless of any differences in the children's temperaments or characters', and 'the majority disapprove (of inflicting severe pain on children as punishment) .... but the emphasis with which such disapproval is voiced suggests the possibility that there is an unconscious temptation against which such defences have to be erected. In many other societies I very much doubt whether such heat and indignation would be engendered on the subject of severe punishment of children '. On the whole it would probably be true to say that social class differences are more significant than regional differences in influencing parents' attitudes to parent-child relationships; in particular, Gorer suggests, this applies to the 25% of the population other than the straight middle- and working-class, i.e. the lower middle- and upper working-class and the upper middle and lower working-class. Some regional differences may he peculiarly relevant to authoritarianism, however, e.g. the fact that in the North-East and North of England paternal authority is at its highest and that there are the greatest number of all-male associations, whereas in the North-West women have greater authority in their family and greater independence than in any other part of England. Scotland was not included in Gorer's survey, and one can only speculate on these matters. The greater use of the tawse in Scottish schools than of corresponding forms of corporal punishment in English schools is often remarked upon. 'Even 50 years ago, beating with the tawse was so common that practically no parent had any sympathy for a child who complained of it', writes Douglas Young in an article in the 'News Chronicle Dispatch' (25/3/58) in reference to the book by Hugh Millar, 'My Schools and Schoolmasters'. A revealing remark is made by Dr. M. A. S. Ross in an article entitled 'Staff-Student Relationships at Edinburgh University' in the University Gazette No. 15 (1957):- 'A most important factor in discussion tutorials is the 'diffidence' of the Scottish student - his unwillingness to speak in the presence of authority'. Indications of a similar kind that an authoritarian background may be one of the characteristic features of Scottish life are frequently encountered. And indeed, on the basis of some of the findings of the present research concerning leadership, may not this be a factor in Scotland's traditional facility for producing a triumphant pioneering spirit in her sons, as well as considerable powers of leadership? This may well be so; but it should be remembered that non-authoritarian upbringing equally produces leaders and that just possibly they may have something in common with Anderson's 'integrative' leaders, in contrast to those of a more 'dominative' kind. Lastly, the question of the practical implications of this research remains to be considered. In the absence of specific evidence as to which kind of leadership the two types of upbringing tend to foster, it must be assumed that 'leadership in general' is the outcome of both, but that authoritarian upbringing is especially likely to produce it. From this point of view authoritarian upbringing no doubt has much to commend it. On the other hand, authoritarian upbringing is demonstrably more prone to produce unpopular children, and this must surely call for disapproval, especially if it can be shown that unpopularity is in fact associated with some form of 'ego-weakness'. On balance it may perhaps be thought that the advantages are on the side of nonauthoritarian upbringing. But if so, what follows? Robb (1954) points out the obviously broad scope of this problem at the conclusion of his book, 'Working-Glass Anti-Semites', after he has shown that anti-Semitism is not so much an intellectual system of beliefs about Jews as the fulfilment of certain inner psychological needs in personalities of a definite type. The problem is essentially the same, all the work done in this field confirms that anti-Semitism and authoritarianism in its extreme form are different expressions of the same personality-formation. This is not to say that anti-Semitism characterises half of Edinburgh's population of parents, of whom only a tiny proportion could be regarded as extreme authoritarians. But all the parents who come in the intermediate part of the F-scale range, and probably most of the high-scorers too, could no doubt be comprehensively described as 'having authoritarian leanings', and as far as their relationships with their children are concerned, their failings could perhaps best be summed up as 'tending not to respect their children as individuals, with rights and feelings of their own'. This may well describe the average parent in the country as a whole. Mueller (1945) surveys the literature on paternal domination in different cultures in order to make a comparison with the position in the U.S.A. and concludes, 'In Europe the tradition of paternal superiority and control is still the accepted pattern; children are trained to a more deferential attitude and a more military-like obedience to their father than in the United States....'. The results of the present research show that the matter is not an unimportant one. The question is, how can people be brought to modify their attitudes, in so far as those attitudes are deleterious? Robb (1954) says, 'the conclusion would seem inescapable that in the long run the most effective attack on anti-Semitism and prejudice generally is along the lines of prevention.... efforts designed to promote the growth of well-adjusted personalities offer one of the chief long-range hopes of producing a marked and lasting reduction in prejudice'. The same is surely true for authoritarianism. Among such efforts might be included the publication of relevant findings, such as Robb's own work, in the hope that they will be read by parents of young children. Will not there be greatest resistance to insight from precisely those parents who are in greatest need of it? That is so, but let Adorno et al. have the last encouraging word: 'Techniques for overcoming resistance, developed mainly in the field of individual psychotherapy, can be improved and adapted for use with groups and even for use on a mass scale. Let it be admitted that such techniques could hardly be effective with the extreme ethnocentrist, but it may be remembered that the majority of the population are not extreme but, in our terminology, 'middle' '.